Seal of Approval
by Pride of Ergastulum
Summary: Continuing a series of one shots about Emma, Ergastulum's newest resident. Worick begrudgingly allows her to stay for the moment, but helping out at Dr Theo's one day may just allow her to prove herself.
Emma blearily opened her eyes, a male voice waking her, resisting the urge to sit up she tried to keep her breathing steady so she could listen to the conversation. "Nic why is there a kid on our sofa?" Worick demanded glaring at his friend watching the reply, "so what if there is no space at Theo's, ours isn't the default places for waifs and strays."

"I figured this would've happened," Emma thought to herself, she remembered walking back to Nic's appartment with him but she'd fallen asleep as soon as she'd sat down, someone must have flung a blanket over her, bruises all over her body ached from the fight earlier that day as she shifted ever so slightly.

"How could a kid like this be useful?" the voice just seemed to be getting angrier as Emma listened to half of a conversation, "did you actually see her use the sword?" Worick let out an exasperated sigh, "No, the kid's different from Alex."

Finally unable to hold her tongue any longer, Emma pushed herself into a sitting position ignoring her screaming muscles, "Is that because she's pretty?" The man speaking with Nicolas was a bit taller than he was, although that wasn't exactly difficult, his blond hair reached down to the top of his back, some of it tied back from his face, an eyepatch covered his left eye. "His eyelashes are so long," Emma thought, "he almost looks a little girly."

The cigarette nearly dropped from the man's mouth, surprised to see her awake, then he laughed, "Name's Worick."

"Emma," she replied curtly still trying to figure Worick out, at least you knew if you ticked Nic off then you would get beaten to a pulp but he seemed gentle too, with Worick however she couldn't tell what he was thinking, he seemed like the type of person to act however he needed to depending on the situation.

A movement caught her eye, Emma turned round to see Nic signing something to Worick, but she had absolutely no clue what he was saying, "Really a B/2? Did Nina read the tags right?" Worick asked, Nic nodded in reply, Worick frowned deeply in thought, "I guess since you did Nina a favour you could stay for a couple a days."

Emma felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips, "Thanks, I'll try to get out of your hair soon," Worick just rolled his eye and flopped down on the other sofa taking another drag from his cigarette, she coughed slightly as she breathed in a wisp of smoke, "If he's trying to drive me out, then he's going the right way about it," she thought.

The remaining member of the handymen returned shortly after, Alex blinked in surprise as she saw the young blonde girl sitting on the sofa, "Hi there," she smiled, Emma blinked back in surprise, struck by Alex's beauty, her blue eyes shining out brightly in contrast to her dark hair and smooth bronze skin.

"Hi," Emma smiled shyly back, it was so awkward talking to girls compared with guys, she stared down at her fidgeting hands as Alex sat next to her, it was so hard to know where to look, the low cut dress Alex was wearing kind of made certain parts of her figure right in your face although it didn't seem intentional. "Sorry for intruding like this," Emma mumbled unsure of what else to say.

Alex smiled remembering how much of an outsider she had felt the first few days she had spent with Nic and Worick, "Don't worry about it, are you hungry? I could use a hand to make dinner." Emma's stomach growled loudly and the colour rose to her cheeks, but she nodded quickly.

"Oh dinner, what'cha making Ally?" Worick came over his arms draping around Alex's neck, "the food around here has gotten so much better with you around," he rubbed his cheek against hers acting completely different than he had with Emma earlier, as his hands wandered down to Alex's breasts, Alex twisted his ear around until he was begging for forgiveness.

"You're such a perv," Alex admonished him slapping him, "maybe I'll just give Emma here your portion." Not realising how hungry she really was Emma's eyes lit up at the mention of more food.

"Alex is a really nice person," Emma thought, "she seems so normal compared to the other two," she followed Alex down to the kitchen trying to help a little with the cooking. Alex didn't press her too much for details about herself instead just asking how she had gotten mixed up with the handymen, Emma breathed a sigh of relief at not having been interrogated by anyone, "They all probably have things in their pasts they'd rather not talk about too."

Emma stuck her head out of the clinic's window, letting the fresh air fill her lungs, it was nice to finally get out of the apartment being unable to get around the city on her own yet all she could do was follow Nic or Alex around when they went out on errands but she didn't want to bother them so much. So she'd asked Nic to bring her to Dr. Theo's at least here she could be of some use, besides she wanted to at least give something in return for treating her graze earlier in the week, since he had gone out on house calls it had left her and Nina to deal with any patients that stopped by. Most of the time it was Theo's regulars stopping by to pick up prescriptions or minor injuries, Emma laughed a little, for the first couple of hours Nina had barely let her out of her sight, but once she'd seen Emma was able to put in a few stitches she was left to her own devices. Gazing down the street she saw a little boy lurking at the corner of the of the clinic, stepping outside she stopped a few meters away from the child.

"Hello there," Emma called softly, "are you waiting to see the doctor?" Large brown eyes stared back at her, his clothes were stained and tattered, his bare feet had a few cuts on them, she shifted a little closer and to her relief the boy didn't move away, "Nina's inside, and I just started helping out today, could one of us help?"

The little boy shook his head defiantly the tags around his neck jingled fiercely, the poor kid Emma sighed, he looked malnourished and it was getting cold out too, she wished she could get him inside for an hour or two, taking a small ball out of her pocket she rolled it towards the boy, he picked it up and stared at it in wonder. Emma nodded encouragingly towards the boy, and he eventually threw it back, she smiled taking a couple of steps back and threw the ball so it landed a little away from the boy forcing him to come forward to pick it up. She kept going like this until they were each side of the clinic's door, the boy even started to smile enjoying the game, he probably doesn't get many chances to play Emma thought sadly to herself, the boy gradually crept a little closer.

Emma's eyes flicked upwards and a chill crept through her as she saw three men heading straight for the clinic, "Don't look too friendly do they," Emma thought to herself, closing the distance between her and the boy she put his hands on his shoulders, "How about you go and sit inside for a little while with Nina until doctor Theo comes back okay?" the boy looked distressed but she pointed behind him and his eyes widened in fear once he saw the three men getting closer. Emma could now see the largest of them had dog tags around his neck as well, ushering the boy inside she called out to Nina "lock the door and don't open it again until I tell you," and grabbed her sword from where it was leaning against the wall, buckling it to her belt.

Casually leaning against the wall of the clinic Emma took a few deep breaths trying to make her face as calm as possible. The men reached the clinic fanning out to surround her, "I heard there was some weirdo short tag with a sword going around district 8, didn't realise it was a chick though or that the quack had employed it. You better let us in kid," Emma continued to ignore him but an idea started to form in her head.

"If they think I'm Nic then this could be pretty interesting," she smirked slightly to herself and finally looked at the men, they were all pretty tall, the ones without tags were scrawny but they each had a section of a metal bar swinging menacingly in their hands. The twilights tags only read C/3, a lot weaker than the previous thug who had targeted Nina on Emma's first day in Ergastulum, "Even with two goons this shouldn't be too difficult," she thought to herself experimentally stretching out her arms, they still ached from her previous fight but she'd had worse and faced stronger opponents.

"You gonna let us in?" their leader asked threateningly, Emma made no acknowledgement of the comment continuing to stare straight through him. "You deaf or something punk?" despite the urge to laugh Emma managed to keep a straight face, the twilight spat on the ground, "get her out of the way."

The two leaner men rushed her brandishing the metal pipes, keeping her sword sheathed she took it from her belt and charged at the closest man driving the scabbard into his stomach, he collapsed to the ground retching and struggling to breath, spinning around she raised the sword just in time to block the other man's metal pipe, going under his arm Emma reversed her grip on the sword and slammed the pommel into his nose, blood exploded on to his face the bones of his face crunching under the blow. The man stepped away covering his face, Emma turned to the twilight and shrugged, "Dumb normals can't do anything right," he cursed his dirty blond hair falling across his face. Emma ducked and let his fist slam into the wall behind her, she heard Nina squeak as she watched from the window, a new dent appearing on the clinic's wall, "Sorry Doc," Emma thought as she kicked the man in the ribs, swinging the sword down at his neck.

At the last moment he caught the sword and pulled her forward off balance, Emma gasped, "He's fast, this could be trickier than I thought," as a knee was driven into her stomach, her mouth opened in a wordless cry, but she remained standing twisting her sword from his grasp she hit the side of the sword off of his head. Roaring in pain he aimed a punch at her face, still dazed from the earlier attack Emma failed to completely dodge the blow, it glanced off her jaw catching her lip and tearing it open, she licked her lips tasting the metallic coating of blood.

The fight continued for several minutes with neither of them gaining the upper hand, Emma squinted at the man, she could already feel her eye swelling, he was breathing just as hard as her but he was probably fighting fresh though while her body screamed in agony from days old bruises. This time she took the initiative running towards him as she began to draw her sword something hard slammed into her back sending her sprawling to the floor, a boot pinned her wrist to the floor as she tried to reach her sword, the fall knocking it from her grasp. Feet repeatedly slammed into both of her sides as she struggled to get on to her knees, a groan escaped her as someone pulled her head back by her hair, her hands now being pulled behind her back, the leader crouched down in front of her taking her chin in his hand. "Did you really think I'd fight alone? There are rumours about you, how you fight sneaky with that sword, even if my back up don't know up from down they can still do some damage." Emma coughed, blood spilling down her chin, her ribs ached, with each breath the air whistling noisily in and out of her lungs, stars flashed before her eyes as a fist slammed into her head.

"I might not last much longer," Emma thought, spots marring her vision, "I hope Nina called someone." Curling her toes underneath her Emma gathered up the last of her strength, kicking off the ground she drove her feet into the tag's chest her shoulders pulled against the strain as she flipped over landing behind the men holding her arms. Twisting out of their grasp she retreated a few steps, stumbling to retrieve her sword. The two normals rushed her at once, struggling to stand she swung the blade in a low arc, the first man went down as it slammed into the side of his knee breaking one of the bones in his leg. Letting the momentum carry the sword up she caught the second thug in the head, he crumpled instantly to floor unconscious.

The twilight ran straight for her swinging one of the metal pipes his companion had dropped earlier, Emma drew the sword quickly, it sliced straight through the pipe, the broken end flew off impaling itself and creating a new hole in the clinics wall, the sword carried through on the downward stroke shallowly slicing through the twilights chest. Blood began to stain his tshirt as it welled from the wound, on her last legs the sword fell limply to her side.

A bullet whizzed past her ear sinking into the twilight's shoulder. Feeling the strength drain from her Emma fell back on to the ground staring up at the blue sky, Worick stood above her gun still trained at the twilight, she could hear sirens getting closer, "Nic take care of him," Worick motioned forward and Emma saw Nic walk past her that demonic grin on his face, Worick crouched down so his face was directly above her, "Sorry we took so long, pretending to be Nic was probably a stupid move, innovative but stupid with a reputation like his," he pulled a wolfish grin.

Emma coughed weakly turning her head to the side to spit more blood out of her mouth before replying, "Get a good show? Or do you always wait in the shadows until the last act so you can save the damsel in distress?" Worick's grin turned into a smirk, "I saw you hiding in the alleyway after I broke one of their noses." Worick took her offered hand and pulled her into a sitting position, Emma pressed a hand to her forehead as a wave of dizziness passed through her, "I might puke," she admitted. Looking at the scene before her she saw Nic throwing the other twilight into the back of a police van, an older man that she assumed was a detective was shouting at him, but Nic pointed over towards their direction then shook an empty pill bottle at the detective, having found it in the other twilight's pocket.

"Overdose huh," Worick commented, "no wonder you had so much trouble with him, after defeating a B/2 a low C rank shouldn't have given you such a challenge." Emma just kept watching the scene, a little confused about what the guy had overdosed on to make him stronger.

At that moment Theo turned the corner and also started shouting at Nic, Emma could tell that he clearly wasn't happy about the damage the fight had incurred to his clinic, Nic started signing then sighed and pointed directly towards her, "I'm so dead," she thought. The detective and Theo walked over to her, Nic following at a safe distance behind the doctor, the older man crouched down to her level before speaking, "So have these bozos recruited a kid to destroy stuff for them?"

"Not yet we haven't Inspector Adkins, she's freelance," Worick put up his hands in surrender.

"What happened kid?" the Inspector asked, not ungently.

"They wanted to attack the clinic, Nina and a kid are inside, they were more important than the building and I taking a couple of hits," Emma finished the sentence struggling for breath, "Nic didn't do anything, it was the other guys fault, maybe a little bit my fault."

"You know the amount of twilights attacking my clinic and staff have increased since you showed up kid," Theo took a long look at her before adding, "Nicolas take her inside," Nic pulled Emma's arm over his shoulder ignoring her stifled cry of pain, every movement hurt, especially when she breathed. Nic sat her down more gently on the bed and Nina immediately rushed over.

The little boy lurked by the edge of the corner, "It's okay, it's safe now," Emma called, Nina shushed her, but she wanted to make sure the kid was okay, he crept over slowly and climbed up onto the bed next to her, he pulled on the chain at her neck revealing a small teardrop gem hanging on it.

"You're a normal?" his little voice choked out, "and you fought that guy anyway?"

"Guilty," Emma grimaced as Nina began to dab disinfectant over the various grazes on her arms and face, "couldn't let anything happen to you or Nina here, hey Dr Theo's here now so you can see him first okay," she gently reached out and ruffled the boy's feathery hair. He hugged her tightly, but she bit her lip to stop herself crying from the pain and gently returned the hug.

"Michael, here you go," Dr Theo called the child over handing him a small bag and a pair of shoes, the little boy gazed up in wonder at the doctor, Theo's usually harsh expression always changed into a kinder one when he dealt with kids, he ruffled the boy's hair as well before ushering him out the door. Turning toward Emma he sighed resuming his usual persona, "Why do I feel like I'm going to be seeing a lot of you?" Emma looked back innocently not having the strength left to speak. "Nina go set up for an x-ray, and beat it handyman, I don't need distractions while I work," Nina and Nicolas left hurriedly then Theo turned back to her, "What hurts?"

"Head, dizzy, ribs, can't breathe," Emma struggled to even get those five words, a noise like a strangled cat escaped her as the doctor gently pressed a hand to her side, tears streamed down her face mingling with the blood that caked it.

"Probably a concussion and broken ribs," Theo muttered, "doesn't seem like you've punctured anything vital though. You going to stand there all day Worick or will I get to do my job undisturbed for once?"

Worick's laughter filled the silence as he walked over, "I'm leaving Doc I swear," he knelt down by the bed and tilted Emma's chin up so she looked at his face, "good enough kid, you can stay for a while, welcome to the Handymen."

Emma grinned in reply, before muttering; "Jerk, you could've saved me the broken ribs."


End file.
